Widespread school closures needed in future flu pandemics

Widespread closures of schools are necessary to reduce the burden on hospitals
during flu pandemics, according to an academic study.

Researchers admit that shutting classrooms will lead to disruption and prove costly to the economy.

But they say that if only smaller closures are organised locally, intensive care units at hospitals will still be overrun by young patients suffering from flu.

The authors, led by Dr Thomas House at the University of Warwick, conclude: “When a pandemic has severe implications for ICU capacity, only widespread school closures (with their associated costs and organizational challenges) are sufficient to mitigate the burden on the worst-affected hospitals.”

The researchers, whose work is published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B, say that children were particularly susceptible to the H1N1 strain of influenza known as swine flu, which swept the world in 2009.

But in England cases dropped markedly over the summer holidays, suggesting that closing schools could reduce the peak by up to 45 per cent as pupils are unable to transmit the virus to each other.

The academics considered whether or not closing all the schools in a local authority area would reduce the strain on hospitals during a flu pandemic.

They admit that it could lead to staff shortages at clinics and hospitals, as many health care workers would have to look after their children.

The study concludes that if a pandemic took hold where most hospitals had demand exceeding their capacity, small-scale school closures organised after cases start to rise would not solve the problem.

Instead, a “co-ordinated and possibly extended period of school-closures may be necessary”.